中国の反日デモ

When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi arrives here on Thursday, he will not be carrying a letter of apology in his pocket. He doesn’t have to. India, one of the few countries in the region where there is no ill will towards Japan, is all set to receive Koizumi with great warmth and work with Tokyo to create a widely beneficial ‘arc of advantage in maritime Asia’. In his recent visit to Jakarta, Koizumi had to tender an apology for Japan’s imperial past and kow-tow to Chinese President Hu Jintao following the massive anti-Japan protests in Beijing and other cities in China. While the new assertiveness of Japan under Koizumi has generated anxieties in Beijing, New Delhi believes that Tokyo cannot be held down 60 years after the end of the World War II. Even when anti-Japan passions were at their peak in the mid 1940s, Jawaharlal Nehru refused to join the world chorus on punishing Japan’s people for war crimes. Instead, he reached out to Japan at its moment of greatest vulnerability. Yet, the positive sentiments in the 1950s could never be translated into genuine partnership. India now recognises that a rare moment is at hand for rethinking its relations with Japan. And it is confident that the current tensions between China and Japan will not come in the way. At a time when India’s relations with China have acquired unprecedented momentum and the prospects for a new partnership with the US are looking up, New Delhi would naturally want to end the anachronism of an underdeveloped political engagement with Tokyo. Strategic cooperation with Japan becomes a natural extension of the expanding Indian military partnership with the United States in Asia. Meanwhile, the fact that China has replaced the US as the biggest export market for Japan speaks volumes about the growing economic interdependence between Beijing and Tokyo. Both are bound to overcome the present political dissonance generated by divisive nationalism. India has no reason to let the current Sino-Japanese quarrel come in the way of long-awaited breakthrough in its own ties with Japan.